Commit publicly

There are all sorts of sites on the web that focus on the broad subject of Getting Things Done ('GTD').

Some have a technological bias whilst others are more philosophical but somewhere in each of them will be a section on goal-setting and the need to 'commit publicly'. There's no more to this than the observation that we 're more likely to reach a goal once we've announced it to the world. Stand-up comedy requires a radical public commitment. If it's just some scribbled notes hidden away in a desk drawer then it's yet to exist. Like most worthwhile things in life you can really only learn how to do it after you've started.

There's a quote I love from the English jazz musician George Melly. A friend had been offered the position of restaurant reviewer for a London newspaper but worried that as he knew nothing whatsoever about food he was grossly unqualified. Melly's reply: -

By the time they find out that you know nothing about it, you will know something about it.